Last week was the second time Y and I had visited Phuket in two years and I don’t know if anyone has ever said this, but you learn much more about a place when things aren’t going quite so well.
The most important lesson I learnt, and that I think everyone who goes to Phuket should know, is that you can’t exchange/get a refund on something as soon as you touch it.
Case in point #1:
We had dinner at this great restaurant one night. I ordered “chilled young coconut”, those are the exact words on the menu. The coconut arrives. I take a sip. And another. Then I try to scrape off some coconut flesh and discover that it’s rock hard.
I tell the waitress the “young” coconut isn’t all that youthful after all and I want to change it for another one. She tells me she can’t give me another one because I’ve already taken a sip. Apparently, the very first thing I should have done is try the flesh before taking a sip. That way, we guessed, if I reject it for whatever reason, they can bring me a new one and give mine to someone else.
Case in point #2:
We booked ourselves a fishing/snorkelling trip. As the boat heads out to sea, we discover it’s actually in terrible condition and, upon checking the brochure, that it’s not the exact boat we had been promised. Worse, when it comes time for snorkelling, we discover that the “snorkelling destination” isn’t really for snorkelling because there’s nothing to see, and the boat didn’t have any snorkelling equipment anyway.
We ask to go back immediately, cutting what was supposed to be an eight-hour outing down to four. Then we go back to the tour operator and tell him we want half our money back – not too unreasonable, we hoped, seeing as we only got to do half of what was promised in half the time originally agreed.
The manager refuses. He gives us back an eighth of what we paid and tells us that if the boat didn’t have the equipment and wasn’t the same one, we shouldn’t have gotten on in the first place. Apparently, we should have inspected the boat and grilled the crew about equipment before setting foot on it.
So now I know.
